London Police Want To Crowdsource Guilt-Free Surveillance

from the watching-over-you dept

One of the earliest proposals for mass surveillance was the Panopticon:

a type of institutional building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in the late eighteenth century. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) inmates of an institution without them being able to tell whether or not they are being watched.

The design consists of a circular structure with an "inspection house" at its centre, from which the managers or staff of the institution are able to watch the inmates, who are stationed around the perimeter. Bentham conceived the basic plan as being equally applicable to hospitals, schools, poorhouses, daycares, and madhouses, but he devoted most of his efforts to developing a design for a Panopticon prison, and it is his prison which is most widely understood by the term.

The Metropolitan Police is hoping to use crowd-sourcing to identify people suspected of committing crimes in last year's riots in London.

Officers are to upload up to 2,800 CCTV images taken during the disorder in August on to its smartphone app.

What's particularly striking about this scheme is the scale:

"My hope is that the two-thirds of Londoners who own smartphones will download this app, and help us identify people we still need to speak to.

We need Londoners to browse through the app every week or so as new images will appear regularly. This is a fantastic way for Londoners to help us to fight crime."

In the case of the London riots, the CCTV images may be relatively unequivocal about crimes being committed; but the new scheme is already being extended beyond those exceptional events:

The app will also include a further 2,000 images of people wanted by the police for offences not connected to the riots.

That's worrying because there is no way of knowing what these people are accused of -- they might, for example, be involved in legitimate street protests against the UK government, or against multinational corporations in the UK, both of which have been subject to controversial policing in the capital. That seems a real possibility, given what Facewatch, the company behind the scheme's technology, says about its service:

An online crime reporting system for businesses to report crime providing the full evidential package required by the police

A way for businesses to deter crime by instantly sharing images of suspects between group members

All images from reported crimes are viewed by the police who will try to identify and match suspects using the information provided.

This raises the prospect not only of deterring crime, but of deterring protests, since participating companies will be able to pass photos of protesters who are alleged to have committed criminal acts to the police, who can then add the faces to all the others on their smartphone app. Londoners can then help identify them without concerning themselves about the legitimacy of the requests, since they will just be part of the constantly-updated stream of alleged criminals. Jeremy Bentham would have been proud of such an efficient, anonymous system of control.

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I had the exact same thought and honestly I think it is positive to see the police interacting more with people. The need for seeing what the person is accused of is essential for the public trust and I would guess that it could be rather easy to add that information.

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or deter potential competition.it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that once such a system becomes commonplace the rules of evidence will most likely be modified to reduce the potential of a successful legal challenge to any prossecution based on the crowd sourcing app.

the whole idea of all the surveillance laws being introduced is so that every government, whether in a democratic society or not, can identify, then intimidate whoever they want with the ultimate aim of threatening them with prosecution if they dare to protest against the government again. the ultimate deterrent from dictatorships is in the offing, wiping out any remnants of democracies. the price of fear on the part of governments and politicians that just take payments from those that want special favours. what a society we are very fast heading towards!

Re: Re: Re: Time ♫ Is on my Side

I'm not sure any rational military would be willing to turn those on citizens though, for purely practical/tactical reasons if nothing else.

Think about it, as long as they stuck to the 'normal' low-grade weapons, then there would still be plenty of people who would sit on the sidelines, not really willing to join either group. Soon as they whip out the big guns though... suddenly it would be much more likely that those that were neutral beforehand would be willing to join the fighting, which would drastically change the odds.

reporting

nice move by your coding staff, changing your policy so that you have to be logged in to the site in order to 'vote', aka, click on the insightful, funny, and report buttons. earlier it was tied to logged in membership cookies, but that's ok, there is a way around that too. but I am impressed by the implementation of such a change so quickly.

for those not following along at home. A/C or any viewer could click on the insightful, funny, or report buttons without having to be logged in. i took it upon myself to begin flyswatting the greedtards here and their litany of idiodic arguments that weren't even arguments in order to hide their posts. and in one day it was changed.

i am probably giving your IT staff too much credit, being as techdirt is based on wordpress, and not real code, or the ability of your IT to actually code for themselves. so, instead of using Zeus on your wordpress, I followed your restrictions and used vpn to vote multiple times. but that's ok too, I can understand why you changed the rules. easily enough circumvented, but i get it.

after posting under probably 23 different IPs here, I can easily increase that by 3,000 different IPs. but I have a better idea and you should probably expect new and inventive ways of censoring the idiots here, it's a good taste of their own medicine. one thing you should always remember, there is always someone out there that is incredibly smarter than you are, this is the way of the internet. I respect you Mr. Masnick, and your blog, but you really shouldn't fuck with ppl smarter than you are.

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refresh the page, and see if your vote stuck.

If there is indeed a problem with retaining votes, it's a bug -- we are working on some new comment features and it's possible something got broken. I've passed this along and I'll let you know what happens. Sorry to disappoint you, but there's no great conspiracy to exclude the non-logged-in votes here.

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nice move by your coding staff, changing your policy so that you have to be logged in to the site in order to 'vote', aka, click on the insightful, funny, and report buttons. earlier it was tied to logged in membership cookies, but that's ok, there is a way around that too. but I am impressed by the implementation of such a change so quickly.

for those not following along at home. A/C or any viewer could click on the insightful, funny, or report buttons without having to be logged in. i took it upon myself to begin flyswatting the greedtards here and their litany of idiodic arguments that weren't even arguments in order to hide their posts. and in one day it was changed.

To my knowledge, we made no such change. And indeed I just logged out to check, and I can vote just fine... It is likely that you simply were here during a moment of high traffic when the server was lagging, which can on occasion interferes with the script that manages comment voting.

i am probably giving your IT staff too much credit, being as techdirt is based on wordpress, and not real code, or the ability of your IT to actually code for themselves. so, instead of using Zeus on your wordpress, I followed your restrictions and used vpn to vote multiple times. but that's ok too, I can understand why you changed the rules. easily enough circumvented, but i get it.

Not only have we not changed any rules but we are not, in fact, based on Wordpress either - so before you start flinging thinly veiled insults you might want to make sure you're not making obvious errors in your own analysis.

after posting under probably 23 different IPs here, I can easily increase that by 3,000 different IPs. but I have a better idea and you should probably expect new and inventive ways of censoring the idiots here, it's a good taste of their own medicine. one thing you should always remember, there is always someone out there that is incredibly smarter than you are, this is the way of the internet. I respect you Mr. Masnick, and your blog, but you really shouldn't fuck with ppl smarter than you are.

Umm... go for it? There are certainly a lot of smart people out there - not entirely sure that you're one of them based on your incorrect diagnosis here, but who knows. Definitely not sure what Mike or anyone did to "fuck" with anyone.

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I was not thinly veiling anything, merely stating fact. as for your 'perceived' threat, this is nothing of the sort. it is again merely stating fact. I respect Masnick, and you as well, this is a very informative blog, i would never affect it in a black hat manner, I am only stating fact.

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I am only stating fact.

Except when you state that we have made some sort of policy change to combat anonymous votes (not a fact) and when you state that we run on wordpress (not a fact) and when you state that our site is not built on "real code" (it's hugely customized) and the guy who runs our site doesn't know how to code (again not a fact) and that Mike is trying to "fuck with ppl smarter" than him (once more, not a fact)

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and you base this assumption on your immense knowledge of..?

of the fact that i work here, I know firsthand what framework the site runs on, I talk to the guy who maintains it every single day, and I have access to see the comment votes - which include several anonymous votes on comments on this very post, that are being tracked no problem and which I can clearly see.

If some votes are not being tracked, there is some sort of glitch. We'll get it fixed.

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then you are absolutely right, and I have brought an issue to your attention, my goal met.

Except we just checked, and there is no glitch. Everything as far as we can tell is operating exactly as it always has, since the feature launched in fact. So - really no idea what you're talking about, I'm afraid. What code is it that you claim has changed?

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sadly, I admit, my analysis is prob beyond you, i could post a white paper, but that defeats my purpose, why? because i don't work for you. you are arguing a point of contention that is already past, and proven, i am not trying to discredit you, just your ability to swim with the big fish.

Re: reporting

Nothing has changed and your votes are being registered. If you vote on a comment and you're not signed in, then you reload the page, of course the button doesn't stick. You're not signed in. We can't assume you're the same person. The behavior you're seeing is expected, correct, and has been exactly the same since the day we launched comment ratings. Feel free to vote as often as you'd like.

Just in case you're interested, Techdirt is not on Wordpress (though perhaps it will be someday). It is run on custom code loosely based on the old slashcode, which we ditched almost a decade ago.

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My point? You said that Techdirt is "not real code" because it's Wordpress. It's not. Never was. I thought that, you being a genius and all, it might satisfy your intellectual curiosity to know something about the actual origins of the code. So my point was to add a spark to your already brilliant light. But, um, never mind.

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good, very good, but for the dupes in the world, impelling, for others, not so much. u know, rooting your site was easy, and yes, it is based on a bastdardized version of wordpress, hence the slight to your IT krew, but absconding me of being ill-informed is outright funny.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: reporting

good, very good, but for the dupes in the world, impelling, for others, not so much. u know, rooting your site was easy, and yes, it is based on a bastdardized version of wordpress, hence the slight to your IT krew, but absconding me of being ill-informed is outright funny.

holy shit i've been arguing with one of those random-word spambots this whole time...

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riot scum or tv shack students

"and help us identify people we still need to speak to." define "need to speak" please. is this a photo gallery of convicted or suspected criminals? are these crimewatch uk like pics of people photographed while kicking someones head in? riot scum or tv shack students? i doubt that the general public has a problem with turning in the asshole category.

Re: riot scum or tv shack students

Whats to stop a supposedly reputable party from falsly incriminating someone for personal gain

Where's the fucking safeguards, you dont talk about things on this scale without expressly metioning the safequards first and foremost, and then, and only then, when the safeguards have been accepted by the general public on matters concerning the public, should "negotiations" go on

These, aswell as *many* other things are what law should address.
Governments want to regulate us, and its becoming quite clear that we have been forced to regulate them......since it doesnt look like anyone else is fucking doing it

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pretending is like, an opinion, and opinions are like assholes, you have one, and really don't need another one.

as for censorship, isn't that the same thing you want in ACTA/SOPA/NDAA/PIPA/Patriot Act? and i think there is a very long thread here somewhere about the difference between 'this post was flagged by the community..' and censorship, you should read it, i did...ich schätze, der ist von den dummen Amerikanern zu erwarten was,

honestly

Mr. Masnick, your do-boys are boring me, marcus can post as Leigh why? and your other tools? not sure I understand the motivation here, perhaps your on tour and you leave these monkeys in charge, its possible. ive written for many blogs over the years, long before your time, but that is irrelevant, some of your trained monkeys seem to think i am some threat to them, well the truth hurts sometimes.

honestly, I think they are out of their league to deal with an asshole like myself, but that's ok too. you can't blame stupid for being stupid, so i can understand. you have a rose colored view of the internet, and try as you might, it will never expand beyond that..like i said, stop trying to disprove the intelligence of those you don't understand. the 'net is something you don't understand yet. someday, but not this day.

I'm downloading the app today

I don't know about you, but I think this app is going to be awesome. I've got a few thousand cute cat pictures that are just begging for an audience, and now the London police have volunteered. Each and every picture of my wuggums is going to have to be personally enjoyed by some nice policeman, to be sure he's not a riotous thug (my wuggums would never do anything like that).

And I know that they might very much like to meet Wuggums, or his charming owner, but I'm afraid we live too far away for personal visits (or extradition).

Oh, and I've got a really pesky boil on my behind that I've been meaning to get checked out. A doctor's really expensive and you have to make an appointment... a police officer's almost as good, right? Better send them a few hundred pictures to be sure they've got a good angle.

I think it's really sweet of the London police service to volunteer to provide this helpful service. I'd say more, but Wuggums made a sick on the carpet, and I just have to share it with the nice bobbies.

I am very skeptical about systems that put people in the spotlight without giving the public any back ground on the why that person is wanted for.

The public should be asked to help of course, but they also should be given the information to actually decide if they want to help or not, without that the system will eventually suffer loss of credibility when inevitably somebody tries to screw somebody because they just don't like the guy.

When I saw the scroll bar I thought 'holy shiet, this article was much more commented than I'd expect'..

More than half of the comments is about a non-existent issue with the rating buttons.

Please TD, add a way to rate the comment section as a whole for an article and add the WTF?! button. Thanks ;)

Now on topic: if you tell the population it's for the children, to catch terrorist or any other fearmongering catch phrase of the century they'll blissfully cooperate. Sad but true. Thankfully, with all the awareness being raised on the importance of privacy and free speech these types of excuses for eroding our rights will slowly stop working. But how much damage will have been done by the time we actually start reacting?

sweet childhood memories

Such nostalgia! I've been quite young at the time, but I can still remember the good old times behind iron curtain, when each apartment block had its assigned neighbor, designed to report anyone's misbehavior to the secret police. We've all felt so safe and protected back then... I can't wait to have that again, only made even better by all the wonderful new technology!